In his introduction
(written for the French edition of Haig's despatches) Foch played high
tribute to Haig's conduct as British Commander-in-Chief.

Click here
to read Haig's preface to his despatches.
Click here
to read Haig's first despatch, dated 19 May 1916, which encompasses local
operations at St Eloi.
Click here
to read an overview of the despatches.

Introduction by Marshal
Foch

It has always been the
custom for the Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the field to
forward to his Government Despatches summarizing the principal periods of a
campaign.

Field-Marshal Sir Douglas
Haig has conformed to this practice. Twice a year on an average, he
has prepared a brief account of the most important features of the British
operations on the Western front. His Despatches cover the period
during which he was Commander-in-Chief, from the end of 1915 to the first
days of April, 1919.

Written with the strictest
regard for the truth and scrupulously exact to the smallest details, these
Reports are distinguished by their unquestionable loftiness and breadth of
view. The information that they give not only on the operations
themselves, but also on the condition of the troops - on the changes made in
their training and their formation during the course of the war -
constitutes them historical documents of the highest order.

They throw into relief the
special character of each contingent that the Empire provided, the
unremitting labours of the Staffs, and define their respective merits.
They are a record, in fact, of the work thanks to which all ranks rapidly
improved their fighting experience and professional skill, and adapted them
to a struggle full of surprises.

They give a picture of the
enormous task devolving upon the various services charged with supplying the
ever-growing needs of a modern army.

If the facts are sometimes
set forth with a light touch, which does not take us down to the underlying
causes and some of their results, it is because these Reports, written
during the course of the war, and addressed to the British Government, were
destined eventually for the eyes of the whole Nation, whose feelings must be
considered, just as the enemy must be kept from gathering information of
value.

None the less, to read them
is to discover how remarkable was the unswerving purpose which fashioned the
British Army from 1917 onwards into a magnificent instrument of war.

Its effect can be seen in
the training of the troops, in the creation of special services to deal with
the increasing number and variety of engines of modern warfare, in the
production and transport of munitions to satisfy a demand hitherto unknown,
and in the construction or repairing of the lines of communication.

No instrument, however, can
produce of itself; there must always be the hand which knows how to use it.
When, therefore, the Despatches are content with telling us that the period
of attrition was followed in the natural course of events by the period of
decision, that the German armies, exhausted and worn out by the fighting of
1914, 1915, 1916 and 1917, were to be defeated in 1918, they do not say why
the former period was so long and the latter so short.

Still less do they explain
the change in the decisive period when the Allies advanced to victory at the
double, only to be stopped by German capitulation at the Armistice.
The results are briefly set forth, their causes are not explained.

All mention of the hand
which guided the instrument is omitted. We may be allowed to make good
this deficiency, in which the all-important part played by the British
Higher Command is lost to sight.

The period of attrition
coincided, in fact, with a period of weakness for the Allies, which was the
result of their incomplete preparation for war. To the battlefields of
1914 the Entente had not brought more than a British Army of six divisions
and a French Army lacking in the artillery and munitions required for modern
warfare.

With these inadequate
means, we certainly did stem the invasion in the first year, but so long as
the shortage in our effectives and material was not made good, we were not
in a position to undertake the long-sustained Offensive which alone could
force a decision by arms. We were limited to local and spasmodic
engagements, and the best that could be done was to endeavour to co-ordinate
them as to space and time.

That is the explanation of
the poor results obtained up to the year 1917. Happily for the
Entente, the enemy was obliged during these years to cope first with the
Russian and then with the Rumanian Armies in the East.

Consequently, he had
employed on the Western front only a part of his forces, insufficient to
gain a definite victory, or had put into operation, as at Verdun, only a
narrow and limited conception of the offensive.

The resulting weakness of
the two opposing lines threatened to prolong for some time to come what has
been called the war of attrition - that struggle of unmarked and unsustained
advantages, which wears out both armies without bringing gain to either - a
war without result. If a war is to end in victory, it must always be
given a character different from this.

In the course of this
struggle for a decision (a necessary phase be it said), Germany freed
herself on the Eastern front in 1917 by means of the Russian Revolution and
the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest.

And when she turned the
mass of her formidably equipped armies, more than 200 divisions strong,
against the Western front to deliver the violent and, in the first instance,
victorious attacks on the Somme in March, 1918, on the Lys in April, on the
Chemin des Dames in May, on the Oise in June, and on the Marne in July, who
could perceive the signs of that fatal attrition, or the dawn of victory for
the Entente?

Who will forget the danger
of fresh enemy advances, along the Somme, to Amiens, to split the British
Armies from the French, or towards Saint Omer and Dunkirk, to cut off the
British Forces from Great Britain; or towards Paris itself, the heart of
France and centre of communications vital to the Alliance?

Where was the advantage
claimed from the wastage of the German Armies during the preceding years?
Was there no danger that the conflict of Armies, even Armies of the finest
quality like the British, might end in disaster, unless they possessed a
Higher Command capable of dominating the situation and controlling the turn
of events, able to take the troops in hand again, to reorganize and so
dispose them that they might first bring the enemy to a standstill, then
attack him with such violence, dash and such repeated blows as were never
surpassed?

At every stage, both Higher
Command and Staffs proved more than equal to their tasks. Thanks to
the activity they were to display after the German attacks in the spring of
1918, and in spite of the losses suffered, more than 60 British divisions,
ten times the number in 1914, were to be kept in fighting order until the
end of the year; and their moral was to be better than ever.

Lines of resistance were
multiplied before Amiens, Arras, Bethune, Hazebrouck, Saint Omer and Cassel.
Preparations were also made to flood tracts of country, for the ground was
to be contested bitterly, foot by foot. Above all, powerful supplies
of Allied reserves were to be kept freely moving in constant play between
all the Armies.

Thus it was possible for
French troops to relieve the Fifth British Army south of the Somme at the
commencement of April, and for seven French divisions to support the Second
British Army in Flanders in the same month; for five British divisions to
reinforce the Sixth French Army on the Chemin des Dames; finally for two
British divisions to assist the Fifth French Army in the Forest of Reims,
and two other divisions the Tenth French Army at Villers-Cotterets, and join
in the counteroffensive of July the 18th.

Thus it was that, thanks in
particular to the activities of the British Higher Command and to their
grasp of the needs of the situation, more than 200 German divisions were
stopped short in their offensive by a smaller number of Allied divisions,
and our defensive proved to be victorious. The same must be said for
the support lent by the British troops to other armies during our actual
offensive.

In order to estimate the
ardour and endurance of these troops during this final stage, it will be
enough to mention the dates and importance of the main events:-

Battle of Amiens. Aug. 8-13, in which the
Fourth Army took 22.000 prisoners and more than 400 guns.

Battle of Bapaume. Aug. 21-Sept. 1, Third
Army and Left Wing of the Fourth Army; 34,000 prisoners, 270 guns.

Battle of the Sambre. Nov. 1-11, Fourth,
Third and First Armies; 19,000 prisoners, 450 guns.

The effect of these violent
and repeated British attacks was greatly enhanced because they were linked
up with the actions of other Allied armies, French, American, and also
Belgian, who struck blows which told no less powerfully in the general plan
of this converging assault, extending from the North Sea to the Moselle.

Never at any time in
history has the British Army achieved greater results in attack than in this
unbroken offensive lasting 116 days, from the 18th of July to the 11th of
November.

The victory gained was
indeed complete, thanks to the excellence of the Commanders of Armies, Corps
and Divisions, thanks above all to the unselfishness, to the wise, loyal and
energetic policy of their Commander-in-Chief, who made easy a great
combination, and sanctioned a prolonged and gigantic effort.

Was it not the insight of
an experienced and enlightened Commander which led him to intervene as he
did, with his own Government on the 24th of March, 1918, and with the Allied
Governments assembled at Doullens on the 26th, to the end that the French
and British Armies might at once be placed under a single command, even
though his personal position should thereby suffer?

In the events that
followed, did he not prove that he was above all anxious to anticipate and
move in perfect harmony with the general Allied plan, framed by the new
Supreme Command?

On this point the
Despatches contain gaps which prevent the reader from grasping all the
reasons for our victory; truth compelled me to complete their account.

F. Foch

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